The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-06-23

rooms rise, with rooms on each side OF
me hall, 90 that each house win con-
tain about twenty -four suites, including
the Easements; and in some cases the
cellars are occupied by wretched
persons too poor to pay the price
Of the rooms above. These suites bring
90 to 412 month. These are the re-
spectacle tenant-houses where the work.
ingmen, many Of the police, car-drivers
and conductors, truckmen, .portere and
other respectable people live. They
usually have large families, and to sup
port them properly they cannot AFFORD to
pay for better accommodations. The
day laborers and mechanics also are
obliged to live in these wretched places,
for New York is dear place to live In.
When q laboring man earns dollar
day the year round he is doing well, but
out of that he cannot afford to pay
more than SO per month for shelter
and live and nourish four or five chill
dren or bury them. In all of these tene-
ment-houses, even the very best OF
them, they have to crowd in in manner
dangerous to health. In some of the
rear houses and rooms the sunlight
never enters, and in the largest must be
done all the domestic labor-cooking,
washing and ironing-and these small
places In the summer are little better
than ovens, and the poor mans babies
wither and die like flowers in the sun.
The death rate in these places would pass
belief If the statistics did not prove 1t.
The wives of the men who live In
these houses take in washing and sew.
ing, and the children work as soon as
they are able, but they cannot lose the
time to go where they might have q
glimpse of tree or f1owers-can never
get away from these pestilential holes to
breathe the free air of Heaven or bask In
the sunshine, trees and flowers, and
pure air. Think of the awful de-
privation, you who live In country places
or who can have them all Think of the
misery of it, you who do not realize the
precious gifts you and your sound rosy
babies enjoy! Take a glimpse at these pale,
thin, wan little ones who look at clover
blossom with a holy awe as # 1t were
something too bright and glorious, too
wonderful for belief, and thank God for
your homes. say nothing now of the
worst tenement houses.
Here in New York it is every one for
himself and the devil take the hindmost.
The population is such Heterogeneous
one that everybody Is looked upon with
suspicion-here o-day and gone to-
morrow. The way of living favors it,
and thus no one can get credit for loaf
of bread or q pail of Goals unless you
take q big house, and then If you only
put on airs enough plenty of dealers
will run after you, quite ready to be
swindled.
The struggle is so hard to get the alb
solute necessities of life that people
have no time to be social, and people
may live in the next room for year and
you never know them nor they you.
Sickness, sorrow, death, starvation may
be within the reach of your hand, and
yet your own necessities are 40 great
and imperative that you have no time to
inquire if 1t be well or i'll with your
neighbor.
There is little sociability among neigh
bors. Those who work together live far
apart, and 1t would be unwise to be too
intimate with the people who occupy the
other parts of the dwellings, and so each
lives to himself. How, then, do these
honest, intelligent and respectable middle
classes enjoy themselves? Dear folks,
they 60 to sleep! That Is all they can do
Once in while Sunday in the park per-
haps once in season they can 60 to Coney
Island or Rockaway, where their starved
lungs can get one breath Of pure sea air:
All the rest of the time 1t is work and
sleep, but mostly work. No rest-work
or you can't eat. Work for your bread,
men, women and little children. Work
or starve. This is the terrible nightmare
existence of all the poor and the workers
in New York city. OLIVE HARPER.